The individual elected mayor of Chattanooga in next month’s runoff will be the first to achieve that office in the midst of a global pandemic, without the backing of crowds at rallies, without venues full of people to see the candidates explain their differences in person, and without the amount of interaction between candidate and potential voter that is usually possible.
For many Chattanooga voters, then, what they know – and feel – about Tim Kelly and Kim White is gathered from a rectangular screen, from a Facebook live or Zoom forum in which they repeat their position on issues they’ve given on numerous other occasions since the primary campaign began.
Such venues are critical to inform voters, even if the questions and answers at each one begin to sound familiar. However, in a forum sponsored by the Times Free Press and WRCB-TV Thursday night, several exchanges stood out.
* Where You Came From: In introductory remarks, White, the former nonprofit River City Co. CEO who has been endorsed by this page, mentioned as she often does that she was born to 17-year-old parents and grew up in the Hixson area, worked to attend the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, moved away and later returned to the city to “find my way” in the job market without business or political connections.
Kelly, answering the first question on opportunities for lower- and middle-income families, made a point to say he “didn’t come from old money.” We’re not sure what constitutes “old money,” specifically, but, until selling the business in 2020, he was a third-generation car dealer whose family was and is wealthy. Unquestionably, he also helped his own lot by starting or buying businesses and making them successes.